Where Aren't We Going to Be?

It's candlepalooza around here. I'm getting ready to take some candles over to the Asheville Art Museum for their Holiday Market (which should be really cool - they bring in a lot of art & craft for the week - I'm looking forward to doing some shopping there.) And tomorrow I'm taking candles over to the Asheville Shop at the Chamber of Commerce - lots of local work in there. And a week from today we're going to the Vance Elementary Holiday Craft Explosion from 12-5. So lots of candle making going on around here.

Also going on around here - lots of bike riding, lots of swimming, tiny little dribble of running. Today Robin and I are heading out on the road bikes - because it's warrrrrm. The mountain bikes are more fun in the cold - really it can't get too cold to ride a mountain bike around here - but the road bike can be slightly miserable when it's really cold. Speaking of mountain bikes Robin introduced me to a new Bent Creek trail on Friday. Lower Sidehill - although if that's the lower version of that trail I'd certainly hate to see the upper one. Somehow I just get in a rut of doing the same thing every time we go, so it's fun to be with someone who knows the trails so well.

More later - gotta go label candles and find my short sleeved bike jersey.

Failure to Launch

Yesterday was one of those days that never *quite* gets off the ground. Well, except for swim practice - that definitely got off the ground. I've gotten to the point where I just do what Andrew says without a lot of thought (because honestly, thinking about it doesn't make it any easier.) And then at the end of practice he says that was 3800 yards.

Me swimming 3800 yards is the equivalent of Michael Phelps swimming 3 times around the earth. Inconceivable. But still it totally rocked - and today my lats are sore, which I think is a good thing for swimming. And also, I had a total 1990 flashback.

In 1990 I was running hurdles on my high school track team, and I loved it. I was the kid that made it a point of pride to never, ever complain. If the coach told me to run 400s until I fell over, then that was exactly what I did. I subsequently lost my blind faith in coaches, but that's sort of another story. In 1990 I was still all about doing whatever I was supposed to do, and wasn't satisfied unless I felt like I had done it pretty much as well as I could.

So towards the end of swim practice yesterday we were swimming 100s with fins, and I had been swimming in the 1:05-1:06 range (which for me is jet propelled), and Andrew tells me to try to swim the last one under 1:05. And I suppose I didn't exactly kill myself, and also I was dying from the previous 11 100s we had just done, but when I came in at 1:08 I wasn't all that happy. So I kind of stewed over it while I listened to our cool down, and then I pulled my fins back on and said I'm going to do another 100 or that's going to bug me all day. My lane mate clearly thought I was insane and deserted the field. Andrew seemed kind of cracked up. But off I went, and did a 1:03, and it was the highlight of my day. It was like an old friend came back from 20 years ago. Ok yes, she's kind of a head case, but really, we don't hold that against people.

Why was that the highlight of my day? Because everything else pretty much went like that last slow 100. Kind of ok but not quite. I've had this master plan to approach a few stores about wholesaling candles, but yesterday I realized I've got to take a good hard look at how many pressed flowers I've got to get me through the winter. Not sure it's enough. It's possible I could supplement with purchased pressed flowers - but I've got to think on that one. And I meant to do yoga and never quite got it done. And Sam's swim practice that's supposed to be 45 minutes long ended up being an hour and half, making it a late night home for him, not to mention I thought the poor kid was going to drown during the doggy-paddle relay. (Although the swim coach gets major points for even conceiving a doggy-paddle relay - how fun is that - but unfortunately Sam started swimming in a swim class, and never learned to do the doggy paddle. Which was very apparent during the relay.)

So it certainly wasn't a terrible day - just one of those where everything is slightly off-kilter. And let's face it, I didn't sleep all that well the night before and then was up at 5:00 and swam my ass off for an hour and half to start the day. Which probably didn't leave me in the perkiest frame of mind anyway. Today, on the other hand is already starting out better - a short run in the rain is just enough to wake me up, not enough to leave me pooped. And I just downloaded another yoga class from yogadownloads and am off to the mat. Party on, Wednesday.

A little ER early in the morning

My phone woke me up at 6 this morning, with my mom saying she was at the hospital with my dad. I was so sleepy this didn't even seem alarming. Turns out it really wasn't alarming - well not much anyway. He'd had a nosebleed all night (ugh), and so they finally took off for the hospital. I'll spare you the gory details, but finally he was ready to go home, which was my job because my mom was substitute teaching today. So I got him home and then we immediately headed right back up there. As it turns out, the problem wasn't with the thingy that's supposed to stop nosebleeds, the problem was more with how much the doctor had explained about how the thingy works. In other words, it looked gross, but was supposed to look gross, so we turned around and headed back home. sigh. So I delivered him back to his house, shouted hello to the goats, checked the horses' feet (no farrier needed for a few more weeks), petted the dog, and hit the road.

First stop - YMCA. I'm trying to get a third swim in every week. It's not much of a swim, mainly drills for a half hour or so. I'm the crazy person at the Y using a wooden kitchen spoon during catch-up drill to try to break my crossover habit. And it's kind of working, so I'll stick with being the crazy spoon person. I also did my 10 minute treadmill run (woohoo!), and the feet are feeling quite happy with their no support, no cushion shoes. Go figure. I'm taking the chinese water torture approach to building up my run - little bits dribbled on at regular intervals. Seems to be working.

Next stop - Woolworth Walk. The candles are selling. Yay! Also of note on this trip, the wacky bike lockers scattered around downtown. The have no signage, so they look like space pods. In fact, a friend of Clark's who works downtown said they've had people asking if they're housing for the homeless. Seriously?!? It's true that it's not very obvious what those things are, but I'm a little worried about anyone who thinks they look like a viable housing option.

So after lunch I was doing the debate of be responsible and work on wholesale docs for the candles vs. go for an hour recovery ride on my bike. I looked at the weather forecast - pouring rain for the next few days - and decided it would be responsible to get a bike ride in. Hmmm. Had fun spinning through Montford and the River - but still no wholesale docs.

Then I picked Sam up (which involved some excitement - a building at Hillcrest exploded and burned down this afternoon, and it's right across from his school. They were all atwitter.) After talking in great depth about what would cause a building to explode (Sam's going with foul play, I said maybe a gas leak) we checked in with Sanctuary of Stuff. No candles selling. Boo. Although if Woolworth keeps going like gangbusters it would suit me to have one place to keep stocked - and Woolworth's a lot closer. But if you want some cool gifts (including but not limited to botanical beeswax candles), head down to Sanctuary of Stuff.

Finally after all of this I am now making candles. Not exactly the hyper efficient day I was looking for, but what are you going to do? Still got a bunch of stuff done - and so far my dad's in pretty good shape, so I'll call that a success.

Food = Good

I just had a biking epiphany. I went for my Sunday morning ride, and went up Town Mountain and then on up Elk Mountain from the Parkway, and then wound through Woodfin a little to the river and home. It's not all that long - about 26 miles - and I definitely didn't go particularly fast, but there is a fair bit of climbing. (ok, that's an understatement - unless one trains on Mt. Ventoux, I think one would find this route is capable of kicking one's ass without the exercise of a little discretion. And I speak from experience, because coming up Elk Mountain from the other direction this summer I started out a little too optimistically and found myself cracked within sight of the crest, while registering a heart rate over 190. Not good times, my friends, not good times.) Anway, I digress (as usual).

So today I decided I was going to take a more regimented approach to getting some nutrition in on the bike, because on a couple of longer rides lately I've found myself feeling veeeery flat until I'd suck down a gu, and then I'd miraculously revive until 45 minutes later when I've be feeling veeery flat. . . you get the idea. And while having no energy sucks, the more alarming part is that when I start losing energy I also get pretty spacey. As in, "oh is that a giant pothole in the road that I'm riding right towards? I dunno, maybe I should consider taking evasive action. Or not...." And that is really not a good frame of mind while on a bike.

So today I sucked down a gu, or ate some gu chomps, every half hour. This maybe was overkill, but I bounced in the door from my ride feeling great, slurped down some chocolate milk (recovery drink of champions), started up some wax for my next round of candles, ran up to the shower, wrote this entry - all a far cry from a couple of Sundays ago when I rode to Marshall and back on two gu's and got home barely able to curl up in a fetal position on the couch. So my conclusion - maybe there is something to this food thing. Food = good.

Exciting News - Woolworth Walk!

I actually have two pieces of exciting retail news, but I'm going to take them one at a time. The second part comes tomorrow.

But for the first part - I now have a space at Woolworth Walk selling my botanical beeswax candles! Funny aside about Woolworth Walk - it's in the building that housed the Woolworth department store many, many moons ago. And lo those many moons ago, when I was a little girl, I can remember my mom taking me shopping in there. My main memory is that the toy department was downstairs - and now so are my candles. Something about that appeals to me.

Here are a few examples of said candles:

Violas - more of these coming soon, now that it's gotten cold enough to grow them again.

Maple leaves.

Ferns and larkspur. Probably one of our most popular combinations.

I got the big idea of trying to get in to Woolworth Walk because my friend Jennifer (Kung Fu Clay - super cool, slightly twisted stuff) got a space there and I went to check it out. So I was walking around and it hit me that not everything there is totally fine art, there's a fair bit of artful craft as well. So I inquired with the (very nice) management, and they gave me a list of what I needed in order to submit my work.

The most interesting requirement was an artist bio. WTF?? How am I going to come up with that? I definitely don't consider myself an artist - an artisan perhaps, but definitely not an artist. And I don't exactly have the "I got my BFA in 20xx, and am represented in the following galleries." My bio's a little more like "here are all of my degrees that in no way pertain to this endeavor," and my one overriding attribute is probably curiosity - I like to know how to do things, or make things. Which means I can pretty competently ride a horse, run hurdles, ride a mountain bike, make pizza dough from scratch, cut a little boy's hair, knit a coat or grow flowers. All of which entertain me, but none of which imply I belong in an art gallery.

So after thinking about it for a few minutes, I took the bull by the horns and decided there was no point in trying to fake it. Here's the first paragraph of the bio:

Sumner Smith is the owner and operator of Spotted Dog Farm, and these botanical beeswax candles are the answer to one question: What happens when a corporate lawyer returns to her family farm, starts growing organic flowers, and then wonders how to preserve their beauty once the growing season is over?

Not the usual artist's bio, for sure, but apparently it worked - because I was expecting to be on the waiting list at Woolworth for approximately ever, but it turns out there aren't that many people making botanical beeswax candles, so they got me in within the week. (yowzers! wasn't expecting to be moving in quite so quickly) And so far it's fabulous.

Stop by and check it out if you're walking around downtown - and if you're hungry I'll also highly recommend the soda fountain. Good veggie burgers, and Sam (the family carnivore) was highly impressed with the hotdogs.

Picture Day

This post was going to be entitled "The Year in Pictures (Or, My Mom Finally Downloads her Camera)." But then I was over at Leslie's perusing her pictures and added a few more. So now it's "The Year in Pictures, Plus a Few Older Ones that Entertain Me." Here goes, in no particular order except that which blogger establishes in its very arbitrary way.


This picture is from a couple of years ago, and is noteworthy not only for the fact that I hiked a skirt up over my chest and called it a dress, but also because pictures of me in this skirt/dress can now be found popping up in weird places in architectural renderings. Seriously. A friend of ours owns a company that produces architectural renderings, and he needed pictures of random people to drop into them and hired Leslie to take these random pictures. And I've seen a few samples that feature me in this dress. Weird, eh?


A few years ago Leslie and I helped a friend who was taking photographs for an art exhibit/fashion show (seriously). This endeavor culminated with me submerged in Beaver Lake wearing a lycra dress and a series of braids on my head that made me look like a teletubby. Not kidding. (Also note, the ranger at Beaver Lake was Not Amused.) To thank everyone who helped with the show, the women in charge had a cocktail party at their house - Leslie and I attended, and were apparently Very Amused by something going on at said party. This picture actually showed up in one of the Citizen Time galleries. It's one of my favorite pictures of Leslie.


One of my favorite knitting creations ever. Our friends, who are huge Johnny Cash fans, had a baby. Leslie really wanted to give them something unique and Cash-like, so I took the album cover from one of Johnny Cash's Greatest Hits albums and turned it into this sweater. Cool, no?


How Sam and his first cousins spent their summer at Camp Nana. They're having a whale of a good time, but I must confess that water doesn't look like much compared to all of the crystal clear pictures on the hawaii blogs I've been reading. Still, what doesn't kill you makes you stronger.

Proof that Sam is probably the most spoiled boy in Asheville. For his birthday his grandmother got him a. . . real knight's helmet. He LOVES it. It weighs about 10 pounds and is big enough for an offensive linemen to fit over his head. It sits in a place of honor beside his bed, but so far hasn't been pressed into actual duty.


How first graders at Isaac Dickson celebrate the last day of school. I can tell you we never got to go to Lake Powhatan and run around like maniacs when i was in elementary school.

The only picture I have from my first triathlon. Seriously. It was just me and Mum (Clark was running market that day), and the battery on her camera died right after taking this picture. Apparently I was just staring at my transition area hoping it would all suddenly make sense.

One of my favorite family portraits. This was right after the Asheville Tri in July.

Pool Day and A Zillion Things to Do

Just finished Masters - and I think I set a new record today - 3300 yards. I know for a real swimmer that is nothing, but for a quasi-, pseudo - swimmer like myself, that's a long way. So I'm kind of happy about that. And it felt pretty good - the inclusion of more tri people at Masters has been a godsend. It's kind of demoralizing to always be the slowest person in the pool - and with the real swimmers that's what I am. But add a few more tri swimmers and things even out. So let's hear it for all of us slow tri swimmers. :)

Now that the swim is behind me I've got a whirlwind of stuff to get done - and among it, I'm headed over to Haw Creek Honey to pick up some beeswax. So Happy to find a really local beeswax supplier. Hopefully this is the start to a long and happy relationship!